on such a frivolous luxury.”
“Frivolous?” Marguerite’s eyes had a wicked gleam. “She takes that carriage to court, does she not? To meet with the Archon and visiting dignitaries, to make official appearances on behalf of the Rat, that sort of thing?”
Shane nodded. As the Bishop’s guard detail, he had been to more official appearances than he could count, and was always a trifle astonished that Beartongue had no difficulty remembering the name and rank of everyone she was introduced to.
“Tell me, what makes a better impression—stumbling out with your hair mussed and your bones rattled and your stomach roiling, or sweeping in without a hair out of place, looking entirely in control of the situation?”
“Huh.” Shane had to stop and think about that one. Obviously the Bishop had to look…
well… bishop-like, whatever that meant. Possibly an investment in that was not frivolous after all.
“Her robes are very carefully tailored, too, even though they look like standard clerical wear for the Rat. She’s not actually as tall as she looks, it’s all done with strong lines. Her vestments are about a half-inch narrower than the norm. All of which adds to the impression she’s trying to convey. Like the carriage.”
He wondered how on earth Marguerite had learned all that. Perhaps spies simply notice these things. Or she went through the Bishop’s laundry. “I admit that had not occurred to me.”
“Of course it didn’t. You’re a paladin.” Marguerite patted his arm. “Physical privation is practically one of your hobbies.”
Wren laughed. “We’re not that bad. I mean, it’s not like we enjoy bad food and dumping ice cold water over our heads at dawn. It just works out that way sometimes.”
“I enjoy hot baths,” said Shane. “And…err…food…”
Both women looked at him. Wren shook her head sorrowfully. “Poor bastard wouldn’t know a spice if it drew steel on him,” she murmured to Marguerite.
“It’s probably not his fault. Raised wrong, I expect.”
“I use pepper,” muttered Shane, stung. “And salt.”
He looked up into identical expressions of pity and decided to stare out the window instead.
“Speaking of salt and jobs associated with it,” said Marguerite, following his gaze, “I believe we’re here.”
THEY DISEMBARKED from the carriage by the shores of a narrow lake. Mountains framed the water on three sides, casting extraordinary reflections that were only slightly marred by wind ruffling the water. Towering above them, battlements raking the sky, stood an immense fortress. It looked ancient and immovable and as if it had been hewn from the living rock itself.
It was also painted bright purple.
“Goodness,” said Wren, craning her neck. “That’s certainly…uh… vivid.”
Careful inspection revealed that the fortress was actually painted in shades of red and blue. One immense tower was ringed with alternating bands, but the colors were so intense that they seemed to vibrate against each other, turning into a violet blur.
“They re-paint it depending on who’s hosting,” said Marguerite.
“Hosting?”
“Footing the bill. This year I think it’s Lord Guillemot, so those are his colors. This isn’t bad. One year Lady Millhaven shared hosting with the Merchant’s Guild of the Dowager’s City, and the place was done up in orange checkerboard on one half and green stripes on the other.” Marguerite flagged down a man in livery standing nearby. “Three for the Court.” Coins exchanged hands and he began carting away their trunks. Marguerite picked up a single bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Right.”
She dusted her hands. “We walk from here.”
There was a nicely paved footpath leading toward the fortress. Shane guessed that all the wagon traffic went elsewhere. This was borne out a moment later, when they passed a large dock jutting into the lake, which seemed to be for loading and unloading river traffic. A second dock extended out past it, with boats bobbing at anchor, but without the bustle of activity.
“So who rules this place?” he asked. “Is it whoever is hosting?”
“Mmm. Technically we are on the land of the princes of Alta, and no, there is no reason you should have heard of them.” Marguerite waved a hand generally cliffward as she explained that generations of princes had ruled the fortress, which controlled the side of the lake that the river drained from, which was, by orders of magnitude, the easiest route into the highlands. Surrounded by high crags and questionable mountain passes, without a great deal of arable land to feed themselves, the princes instead levied taxes on goods passing through.
In the distant past, various kingdoms had either objected to or envied these taxes, and attempted to take the fortress away, which meant that the Prince of Alta had to command a rather large standing army. Of course taxes went even higher whenever there was an attack—and the princes made sure that everyone knew the reason why. Rulers who challenged the fortress rapidly found themselves facing both the sheer cliff, the army, and a great many merchants who were very displeased about suddenly being taxed in excess of fifty percent to use the river.
Attacking Alta entered the vocabulary as slang for a self-defeating plan, and no one had attacked the fortress in over a century.
“The last few princes didn’t feel the need to keep up the full army,” Marguerite said. “Which left them with a fortress full of empty rooms. The grandfather of the current prince started inviting his friends over in the summer, and then a few more friends, and so forth. But it gets expensive to host that kind of party—nobles cost almost as much as armies—so the next Prince graciously allowed people to curry favor with him by footing the bill, and the Court of Smoke was born.”
“So we would be subject to the judgment of this prince in the event of an incident?” asked Shane.
“Define incident.”
“Somebody takes an axe to the face,” offered Wren.
“The guards would frown on that, yes,” said Marguerite. “Both the Prince and the hosting lords prefer that things run as smoothly and as…ah… incident-free as possible.” She glanced from one paladin to the other. “There aren’t going to be any lawyers or trials here. The nobility resolves things with sanctioned dueling. People like us are either thrown in a cell or evicted from the fortress.”
“So no axes?”
“Not unless you can do it without being caught.”
The footpath turned and the shadow of the mountain fell over them. The temperature instantly dropped. Shane tilted his head back to try to estimate the height of the violet fortress. and gave up somewhere at really quite tall.
“This is gonna be a lot of stairs,” muttered Wren.
“No, no. There’s a lift. They don’t make nobility climb like pilgrims.”
“Oh,” said Wren glumly, “joy.”